One of the difficulties of watching Arrow is keeping up with the stuffed-to-the-gills episodes. This episode taught me that the best way to keep abreast is to accept the different storylines as totally different types of story. Each group of characters has their own genre.

You know how all the Transformers, or Power Rangers, came together to form one mega-fighter? Arrow is doing that. All the different characters in Arrow have finally come together to form one powerful crime fighting legend. They are vengeance. They are the night. They... are... MegaBatman.

If the last episode was the Arrow Christmas special, this one is an Arrow Christmas letter. It shows off the characters and generally updates you on how they are and what they're doing, but not much more. Just when I think that this is going to be an entirely forgettable episode - distinguished only by a physically…

Remember how the Grinch attempted to screw Christmas up but ended up making it right in the end? Ollie does the opposite, attempting to make Christmas right for the Queen family, and inadvertently ruining everything for everyone. Now that's the Ollie I know from the comics!

This episode has it all. It has Geoff Johns, co-writer extraordinaire. It has Dollhouse actors doing what they do best. It has new DC characters showing up. It has superhero romance, with multiple couples. And it has a bullet that, maybe, never was.

At last, the villain we've been anticipating since he was just an Easter Egg on the first episode arrives. And he is not the way we pictured him. But he's slam bang in the middle of an episode with some good character moments, and an ending that leaves us wondering about my favorite couple.

Ollie thinks he's on the side of the poor. He is not. That is not outright mentioned in this episode, but it's pretty clear all the same. What is mentioned in the episode? Us going three steps farther into Hamlet, and the most interesting thing yet about the island.

Here it is — the first look at the new superhero series Arrow, all about the rich boy who's survived on an island, only to become a hooded vigilante, the Green Arrow. Here is your very first look at main character Stephen Amell (Hung, New Girl) in the infamous green hood, and with a bit of the Arrow beard as well!